Facebook whiners: Get over it

Commentary: Nothing is private any more, as if we ever wondered

No, I’m not talking about the already overheated presidential campaign. Or the economy. Or, God knows, the Super Bowl war between the good citizens of Boston and New York.

I’m referring to something much more personal and fundamental in our daily lives: Facebook’s new Timeline innovation.

If you’re one of the 800 million-plus people who plumb the depths of Facebook, you probably already know that there is a furor surrounding the social-media site’s requirement that its denizens get on board with its latest feature, Timeline.

Plenty of folks are averse to doing so because they don’t want to be told what to do. Others object to what is being described as a further violation of our basic rights to privacy and ...

Hold it right there. If you’re already posting photos, videos and texts on Facebook, you’ve basically agreed to become a willing partner of Facebook founder and leader Mark Zuckerberg & Co. You’ve accepted the notion that your life could become an open book.

The folks who stick to their privacy gripe are missing the larger point. The flap over Timeline is overdone because your personal information is already being posted on Facebook.

The people are always oversharing — so the “outrage” over privacy is all but laughable.

No one wants their latest innovation to be greeted like New Coke was.

OK, so what’s in it for Facebook? I suspect that it has something to do with management’s two preoccupations: the competitive threat of Google+ and Facebook’s looming initial public offering later this year. Hear about Google’s online tracking.

What lots of us don’t always remember about Facebook is that this is a business, not a charitable endeavor that exists solely to put us in touch with our far-flung high school friends.

We all know that the Facebook brass works hard to tinker with the site all the time — sometimes, admittedly, to my consternation — as a way to keep the site looking fresh and vital. This is no different than how a newspaper constantly changes up its layout or online front page, even on a very slow news day.

There is surely some goldmine for advertisers here, but Facebook also has to keep evolving merely to survive. There’s always the risk of making a New Coke mistake or becoming some cautionary tale of social media, but you can’t stay exactly the same and stay relevant.

The company has been relatively responsive to privacy concerns (usually as a result of user outcry). But at the same time, nothing is free. Facebook is “free” because they’re making money in some other way besides charging you.

Nobody can be surprised any longer by these apparent intrusions in our privacy. As Google
GOOG, +1.66%
has also demonstrated, nothing is private any more. The future is now.

Google to make anonymity harder

(3:18)

Google said it would start combining nearly all the information it has on its users, which could make it harder for them to remain anonymous, Julia Angwin reports on digits. Photo: AP.

On Jan. 24, Facebook said it would be transitioning all of its users to Timeline. In the blog post it said people would have a week to test-drive the feature and fiddle with their profile, but the change was mandatory. The social networking giant billed it as “a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline.” Read Facebook’s blog about Timeline.

“When you get timeline, you’ll have seven days to preview what’s there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone sees it.”

Granted, Facebook is not as essential to our lives as electricity and clean water. Nobody is pressing a gun to our heads and forcing us to use it. Plenty of people live perfectly happy lives without it.

But I’m not one of them.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you like or dislike about Facebook’s Timeline?

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